constants and variables
by MegaBadBunny
Summary: (He isn't certain if he's too drunk for this conversation, or not drunk enough.)


"It wasn't just about you, you know," he hears her mumble. "That whole _blood and anger and revenge_ bit."

Eyebrow piqued in interest, his veins pleasantly warm and buzzing with alcohol's hazy afterglow, the Doctor lazily turns his head to look at her, or what he can see of her in the nighttime anyway, painted a ghostly silver-grey by watery starlight. She lies close to him on the rooftop, the distance between them smaller than it's been in weeks (years), so close he can feel the potential energy like her hand is already holding his. She's a beacon in the dark, but that isn't much different than usual.

"Oh?" he says, because he's a little drunk and other words are more difficult to come by at the moment. (He isn't certain if he's too drunk for this conversation, or not drunk enough.)

Rose nods. "I did things," she says, watching the meteor shower as it plays out overhead, or pretending to watch, at any rate. "Sometimes bad things."

"We've all done bad things, Rose."

"Sometimes terrible things."

"None of us are saints."

Chuckling, Rose rolls her eyes, drawing her coat closer to keep out the chill. "Aren't you at least a little worried you might have sworn to spend the rest of your life with some sort of monster?"

The Doctor shrugs. "Aren't you?"

Rose doesn't respond, except to bite her lip so hard the Doctor can make out its stark white relief even in the nighttime. "I keep thinking maybe that's why you left me behind," she says, quieter now. "The other you, I mean. Like I'm too different, now. Like you could smell it somehow, all that I did. Like I'm a dirty thing."

And suddenly, like someone just flipped the on-switch, a light comes on in the Doctor's brain, then, sending half-thoughts and shadows skittering to the corners. So _that's_ why she's been so strange these last few weeks. Granted, a little bit of awkwardness was to be expected, what with the being-unceremoniously-dumped-back-in-this-universe-without-so-much-as-a-backward-glance, but even keeping that in mind, the tension between them has been _unbearable_. And it isn't the things said so much as the things not said, the way Rose laughs a little too quietly, smiles a little too small, meets his eyes but never for too long. A skillfully rendered performance to be certain; anyone who wasn't the Doctor might have mistaken it all as truth. But half-human or not, he can't help but notice everything about her. She's, well, _her_.

Silence drags on between them and the Doctor still can't find the words he needs. A hundred glimmering lights dance across the inky blackness of her pupils, reflections from the meteor shower up above-he's missing it, a once-in-a-lifetime event rendered painfully literal on this slow path of theirs and he's missing it, choosing to watch her instead—and he wonders if her eyes are glistening from starlight, or something else.

"Sometimes, I think," Rose says, and falters, swallowing thickly, "that you would be ashamed of me, if you knew."

"Doubtful," replies the Doctor.

"You don't know anything about it."

"And you never really knew much about me, but that didn't ever keep you away, did it?"

Rose doesn't reply.

"Look, tell me what happened, don't tell me what happened. Whatever you need. It won't change anything," says the Doctor. "I trust you."

Now she glances his way. "Liar," Rose accuses softly. "You don't trust anyone."

"Not true. I trust constants, if nothing else. Some things simply don't change. The speed of light in a vacuum, the elementary charge _e_ , the gravitational constant _G_ , your mother burning everything she tries to bake, your brother leaving his toys precisely where I'll step on them, you waking up in a terrible mood every morning."

"Oi," says Rose, with a halfhearted smack to his hand. Her hand lingers, after, and the Doctor wills himself to think past the brush of her fingers against the hairs on the back of his hand. It's the most contact they've had since that kiss on the beach, the only time she's touched him that wasn't an accidental bump or glance, sending warmth and a not-unpleasant tingling feeling spreading all throughout, and suddenly it's very difficult to think past that alcohol-buzz in his head, isn't it?

He grabs her hand before she can move it away. (He tells himself it's just to counteract the liquor, ignores the sense that she's the only thing tethering him to this plane.) Muscle memory coaxes their fingers round each other like a musician playing her favorite instrument and the sensation is still so familiar, even in this new body, that the Doctor's throat constricts with the overwhelming tenderness of it.

"I trust that you are impulsive, and a little reckless, and yes, occasionally quite selfish," the Doctor forces himself to continue, and Rose twists her mouth in worry. "But you never act with the intent to harm, you consistently push for things to be better, and any so-called _bad thing_ you might have done was likely in service to the greater good."

"Like what you did on the Crucible?" Rose asks pointedly. "And before, during the War?"

The Doctor hesitates, biting back the urge to argue. But he can't, can he? Not if he wants her to believe him. She's right, anyway; it's something he's always known, but knowing something is far easier than believing it.

(It's a sneaky little tradeoff, the way she demands he forgive his own sins before she'll forgive hers, but that's just another thing the Doctor trusts—that Rose Tyler always finds a way to make things better. Yet another entry on the list of reasons he loves her.)

"Yes," he says, his voice so quiet he'll be surprised if she hears it.

White light dances over Rose's cheeks and her hair as she turns on her side to look at him, oblivious to the show the night sky plays for them overhead. "So if I'm not a bad or dirty thing, then you're not, either."

"I suppose not," the Doctor murmurs. "We're just…human."

"There are worse things to be," says Rose with the barest ghost of a grin. It's the closest thing the Doctor has seen to a real smile since they arrived back in this universe and before he can think better of it he's bridging the gap between them, cupping her cheek in his hand so he can press a kiss to her mouth. Light from the meteor shower overhead pops and flashes behind his eyelids and he feels her smile broaden against his lips and heat and happiness flood through him in equal measure, hormones and liquor and relief and something that feels suspiciously like contentment bubbling up in his skull until he's left lightheaded from it. After weeks of touch-starvation it's almost too much, the warmth of her body pressed to his, the tickle of her breath against his lips. He's shocked to pull back and find that he's winded, breaths leaving his lungs with a ragged edge.

Rose's eyes have shuttered, as if in prayer; her tongue darts out tentatively over the swell of her lower lip, and the Doctor knows she's tasting him there. It does nothing to help his sheer absolute _need_ to kiss her again.

"You won't feel different about all this later, will you?" Rose asks. "Once you've sobered up?"

The Doctor isn't certain whether she's asking about forgiveness or the kiss, decides it doesn't matter; both questions have the same answer, anyway.

"Nope," he says, and he kisses her again.


End file.
